BusinessTN

Vanderbilt University and two former Harvard professors are exploring uncharted territory this fall with a new law and economics program. While many University law programs offer courses in the field, the Vanderbilt Law School is the first in the United States to afford students the opportunity to earn a J.D. and a Ph.D. in law and economics in an integrated program housed at one school.

“We were teaching law and economics at Harvard and noticed that students would get their J.D. and then go across the courtyard and get a Ph.D. in economics, but there hadn’t been an effort to integrate training,” says Kip Viscusi. With his wife Joni Hersch, Viscusi joined the Vanderbilt faculty last summer and is launching the program.

While traditional legal scholarship has been grounded in ideology and philosophy, over the past 40 years, Viscusi says, a movement has arisen to apply economic analysis to legal issues. Whether it’s corporate law and anti-trust, environmental issues or medical malpractice, economics informs practically every area of the law.

“We can use economic tools to determine how well the legal system functions,” he says. “What we do is highly empirical. We use data to analyze how the law works and what effect a law has, whether it’s good, bad or there can be competing effects.”

An example that’s been making headlines recently is the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit to prevent the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger. Not only does the question become whether the merger is permissible under anti-trust laws, but also at issue, say Viscusi and Hersch, is whether it will increase organic food prices.

Sound interesting? Well, it is a bit competitive and like any Ph.D. program, it’s quite a commitment. Three students (two Tennessee natives)—the amount the couple hopes to accept each year—will begin the program in the fall. The expected completion time to acquire a J.D. and Ph.D. is pegged at about six years. Viscusi and Hersch hope that upon completion of the program, graduates will teach and continue their research in the top law schools and business schools across the country, or take jobs at think tanks or in government.

Perhaps graduates will be as accomplished as Viscusi and Hersch. One of the world’s leading cost-benefit analysis experts, Viscusi (prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty) was the John F. Cogan Jr. professor of law and economics and director of the Program on Empirical Legal Studies at Harvard, where he taught for about 10 years. Hersch, considered one of the top female economists in the world, began teaching at Harvard as an adjunct professor in the law school in 1999.